While dog sitting a big Chocolate Lab, I noticed that when we humans went upstairs, he stayed at the bottom of the steps. He had that, “What about poor me?” look about him, and I assumed he was not comfortable with stairs. Perhaps he had no experience with them, or a bad experience had made him nervous about them. There are a lot of dogs who don’t like stairs, and I assumed Bear was one of them.

Except for running up to get something, we mainly use the upstairs for sleeping. As his giant crate was downstairs (it’s too big for our bedrooms!) I didn’t consider it a problem. He was not going to be left out of our activities because of it, and he would be sleeping in his crate anyway, so I didn’t give it much thought.

My main interest in the situation was that he looked so dear standing at the bottom of the staircase looking at us longingly that I wanted to take some pictures of him. I took one, and then he wandered away from the spot. Hoping to encourage him to come back so I could continue with the photo session, I quietly smooched.

His response was to run up the stairs immediately and greet me with enthusiasm. (When I say “enthusiasm” I’m sure everybody can picture what I mean, because who among us has not been on the receiving end of such a canine greeting?) It was just as effortless for him to go down the stairs as to go up. This is not a dog who has any issues with stairs.

My assumption about his ability to negotiate stairs was completely off the mark. It turns out that his reticence to climb them was rooted in good manners rather than a lack of skill. He had not been invited to go upstairs, so he did not go upstairs. When he heard me smooch, he took it as an invitation and he considered himself welcome upstairs. He has since been my shadow every time I go up or down.